Avery Update- April 3rd

Thumbelina...












Avery has been doing so well! She weighs 2 pounds 15 ounces already! These are Nana Gloria's fingers in the picture. They help you get an idea of how tiny Avery's face is! It is amazing to see how much she grows and changes every single day. When she was born, her leg from knee to ankle was much smaller than my index finger. Today I compared her leg to my finger again. Her leg is longer and wider than my finger now!














Two days ago, they took off her oxygen tubes. We love that we get to see so much of her sweet face now. It's amazing to see how all of her features are so well defined even though she is so tiny. We were also happy to get these pictures that show how alert she can be sometimes.













Here is a picture of Shaylen meeting her little sister for the first time. It's hard to imagine that only six months ago, Jennifer was outnumbered by the boys in the house. Six months later, things have sure evened out!













Daddy with his two beautiful girls! I love the sweet look on Shaylen's face. She is the most angelic baby and her expression here shows her sweet and gentle spirit.













Nana holds Avery as Connor and Brayden say hello to their tiny new sister. Nana flew to Iowa with Jennifer, Brayden and Shaylen. A few days later, Grandma Knight was co-pilot as Jason and Connor drove from Arizona to Iowa. It took them two days. Jason said that Connor barely made a peep during the trip thanks to Nintendo DS and the DVD player! What did parents ever do before?!

Avery Nicole Knight

Avery was born March 16th at 6:12 am in Iowa City, IA. Jennifer was there for the delivery of our 4th adopted child. It happened very unexpectedly! I was actually still on vacation with our boys because we didn't think it would happen this early. She was born 10 weeks early and weighed 2 pounds 4.7 ounces and measured 15 1/8 inches long. She is very tiny but doing really well. Jennifer and I are very excited to have her in our family. I have attached some pictures below to show you how small she is. It is amazing that something so small can have so much detail and work so amazingly. I am sure that later Jennifer will post the story of all the things that went wrong and all the things that fell into place to make this happen. We are so thankful for the people that we have met in Iowa that have treated us like family and made this a great experience for us.

She does have a little bit of jaundice so they have put her in the spotlight. If any of you know all the medical words for this stuff and those lights then just pretend I wrote them here. She was in the middle of stretching. So far we have had 2 nurses tell us "Ohhh, she does not like to have a wet diaper!"














Check out the toes. So small. That's Jennifer's pinky finger.













Just to give you an idea of her size we used this 16oz bottle of Pepsi (worlds greatest beverage according to Jason).













We will be staying in Iowa City for about 8-12 weeks before they will release her from the hospital. We are currently searching the area for a place to stay so we can bring our family here and be close to Avery since she can't leave. It will be crazy, but it will be an adventure.

I published this without Jennifer reviewing it so check back later for the corrections. LOL

California Vacation

Connor, Brayden and I were able to go to Newport,CA with our friends Ryan and TiNeill and their son Easton. We had a great time going to Lego Land and Huntington Beach. I had to cut the vacation short and leave early (that story later) with the boys and left Ryan, TiNeill and Easton to enjoy the California sun.


While we were there we stayed with my brother Aaron in Newport. I was able to take a couple of pictures of him bodysurfing near the Wedge. The Wedge had the bigger waves but he got some great waves a little further down and didnt have to risk his life with the pros. He has a great time living in California maybe its because he is able to find time to do this every day. Or it probably has to do with several of his good friends that we were able to meet while we were there. I dont think he will be coming back to live in Arizona any time soon.


























When we were at Legoland Brayden was so excited to get his picture taken with this T-Rex he could hardly contain himself. It was hard to pull away, he basically wanted me to take the T-Rex to our house.


One of the most memorable moments at Legoland came in the bathroom stall. Connor got up from the toilet and was suprised by the automatic flush and said, "Wow that was magical, maybe that is why they call it Legoland".


One of the least expensive activities on the beach was this snail. While he didnt cost the boys anything to watch it almost cost him his life. He just couldnt get out of thier curios reach fast enough. He was able to crawl away with miraculous speed when the boys turned their heads. Brayden, Easton and Connor are the reason snails crawl in terror.


I was able to get the boys to hold still for just a few seconds to get a picture with them. They had a great time but did miss their mom.

The tooth that was

Recently Connor has been losing teeth like I lose car keys. These loses are usually in a normal way but the other day we had a special experience. Connor felt the call of nature and was going number 1 in the toilet. Due to his ability to multitask he was also using his tongue to move his tooth around. This resulted in the tooth leaping from his mouth and into the toilet. We were unable to recover the tooth. When Mom asked if he looked for it after it happened he said, "Yes, Mom but I couldn't see it with all the bubbles".